


best laid efforts

by cosmicocean



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, it's a little sad but not super sad, it's kind of sweet in the sadness i guess?, jessika and temmin are so done with these oblivious assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5579209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicocean/pseuds/cosmicocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jessika and Temmin do their best, aren't even subtle about it, and Poe and Finn are still morons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	best laid efforts

When Finn wakes up, fluttering briefly into consciousness, Poe is slumped asleep in a chair by his side. The jacket that was once his is in his lap, loosely falling from his fingers, and his head is lagging over the side. Finn smiles weakly before falling back into unconsciousness.

 

When he wakes up again, Poe isn’t there, but the General is. She explains everything that happened to him. She tells him that Rey has gone off to find Luke, and that Poe’s on a supply run right now. She tells him that it has been two months. He sees the tightness around her eyes, and the whole time she speaks he tries to figure out the best way to say it.

“I’m sorry,” he finally blurts out when she stands up to leave. She stops and looks down at him, startled. “I didn’t- I couldn’t-“ he bites his lip. “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes are wide and surprised. Then she smiles very gently and for a moment he can see in her not the tired and battered leader but a younger woman, dusted in sadness but enveloped in happiness. The General leans over and takes his hand, squeezing it lightly.

“It’s not your fault, Finn,” she says softly. “It never was.”

He swallows and nods a little. He falls asleep shortly afterwards and he doesn’t dream of a snow covered forest.

 

Poe’s there when Finn opens his eyes next, looking tired and disheveled, but there. He grins a little wearily when he sees that Finn’s awake.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Hey.” Finn clears his throat. “How was your supply run?”

He waves a hand dismissively. “It was a supply run. How are you doing?”

“My back kinda hurts.” He grins weakly. “You think I might have bumped it on something?”

It’s not a very good joke, but it has the intended effect of making the cloud of worry lift from Poe’s eyes.

“Funny,” Poe says dryly. “A real comedian.”

 

Poe’s apparently taken to sleeping in Finn’s room. Finn’s reading some books (reading was prohibited in the Order unless it was for missions and work) and Poe’s propped his chair against the wall unconscious when a young woman in loose blue clothes slides into his room on socks.

“Told him I could do a straight streak into your room,” she says smugly, flipping long black hair behind her shoulder.

“I never said you _couldn’t_ ,” a man older than the woman mutters, striding into Finn’s room in similar clothes to her’s except green as he runs his hand through curly hair.

“…hi?” Finn asks uncertainly, glancing at Poe and wondering if he should wake him for this.

“Hey.” The man shakes Finn’s hand lightly. “I’m Temmin Wexley. This is Jessika Pava. We’re part of Poe’s squadron.”

“Hi. I’m Finn.” 

“We know.” Jessika sits on the edge of Finn’s bed. “I’m Jess. That’s Snap. So _you’re_ the mysterious Finn.”

“The mysterious Finn?”

“Finn’s really good with a blaster,” Temmin says seriously.

“Finn adapts really well to any given situation,” Jessika adds.

“Finn’s got such great aim.”

“Finn looks so great in my jacket.”

“Okay,” Finn says, blushing slightly. “I get the idea.”

“Finn, Finn, Finn.” Jessika leans against the end of Finn’s bed. “Your name doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.”

Temmin opts to sit on the floor, looking up at Finn slightly. “How’s your back doing? And before you say you’re fine,” he adds when Finn opens his mouth. “We’ve all been injured and we all know you’ll be talking bantha shit.”

“Hurts,” Finn admits. “But less than it did when I woke up.”

“That’s progress, dude.”

“Wanna see something funny?” Jessika asks. She doesn’t wait for Finn to answer before she scrambles off the bed and silently pads up to Poe. She sidles up next to him and leans in close.

_“POE!_ ” she bellows. Poe flails and somehow manages to flail off the chair while tipping it over and on top of him at the same time. Jessika cackles. Temmin snorts. 

Finn might laugh a little.

Sue him, it’s funny.

Poe looks up blearily, rubbing at his eyes slightly. He looks kind of adorable sleepy. “Whas goin on?”

“You’re hilarious,” Jessika informs him, crouching in front of him. “And he’s cute.”

Poe frowns, then his eyes widen in alarm and he shoots his eyes to Finn. Finn tries not to feel too hurt that Poe is that frightened of him meeting his friends.

“Don’t worry,” Temmin assures him, evidently seeing the look on his face. “He’s just worried we’ve already told you the embarrassing stories.”

“Like the time an Ewok kicked his ass in a wrestling match,” Jessika agrees.

“An Ewok kicked your ass in a-“

“ALL RIGHT TIME TO GO.” Poe jumps to his feet and starts shoving Jessika and Temmin out of the room. “SO LOVELY THAT YOU MET.”

“Bye, Finn!” Temmin calls cheerily.

“See you soon!” Jessika adds.

Poe firmly locks the door behind them. He drags his chair up to Finn’s bedside again.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I liked them.” He shifts slightly and winces.

“Do you want me to get the med droid?”

“No, it’s fine.”

Poe frowns. “You say that a lot about getting your back sliced open.”

Finn shrugs carefully and awkwardly. The truth is, it’s old habits. In the Order, if you were in too much pain and considered unusable, you were disposed of. Dead stormtroopers were less of a liability than severely injured ones. You lied through your teeth or you died. He’s been watching the Resistance, and he's fairly certain that they don’t do that here. He’s also fairly certain he would get a considerable amount of horrified looks. He’s not used to people caring about him, and he likes it, but he’d like to see it in less concerned capacity.

“High pain tolerance,” he answers instead.

 

“I’ve been talking with Poe’s squadron,” Finn tells Rey via hologram. She is made of blue lines and a little staticky sometimes, but she’s still the Rey he cares for so fiercely, hair messy and smile wide. “Jessika and Temmin.”

“I met them. They’re nice.”

“They are.” They’ve been stopping by with new books, new music (another luxury he hadn’t been allowed), bright and wonderful gifts that don’t compare to their presence, laughing and crackling with warmth.

Rey’s smile turns sly. “How’s Poe?”

Finn determinedly ignores the way his cheeks heat up. “Fine.”

“Mmm.”

“Shut up.”

The sly smile gains a wicked bent. “Have you asked him if he’s got a cute boyfriend yet?”

Finn narrows his eyes. “Why do I talk to you again?”

“Nobody else understands our shared loneliness?”

“That’ll do it.”

 

“Was that your girlfriend?” Jessika asks when she, Poe, and Temmin come in from a bombing run. Both look a little disheveled and Poe’s got a small cut on his cheek. Finn wants to ask if he’s okay or do something stupid, like inspect it himself, but Jessika’s cheerful inquiry as Finn said his goodbyes and turned off the holoprojector delayed him.

Finn blinks. “My what?”

“Your girlfriend. The Chosen One girl. The pretty one.”

“Rey,” Poe mutters.

“Her.”

“Rey’s not my girlfriend.”

Poe’s expression turns from slightly disgruntled (Finn’s slightly more worried about that cut at that expression, it’s got to be due to the pain) to surprise. Temmin raises his eyebrows. Jessika stares at Poe with a weird expression on her face.

“Why did you think she was my girlfriend?”

“Poe said she was,” Jessika informs him, and is her tone slightly smug? Finn looks at Poe with the intent to decode her tone later.

“Why did _you_ think she was my girlfriend?”

“You went to the Starkiller to get her back,” he blurts, cheeks red. “You went right into the people that would kill you without a second thought.”

“Yeah, but not because she was my _girlfriend_. She’s just my.” He struggles for a moment. _Friend_ isn’t right. Neither is _sister._ “She’s my Rey,” he finally comes up with. “I’m not in love with her. I just love her and she’s just. She’s my Rey.”

Jessika’s grinning, looking at him now but eyes darting to Poe occasionally. “This means I can set you up on dates now.”

“ _Jessika_ ,” Poe hisses. Jessika just laughs. Finn appreciates Poe understands his desire to heal before anything else.

(And very grateful he doesn't understand that there’s only one person who he’d really want to be set up with anyway)

 

Finn’s been rethinking the First Order’s “kill the injured” policy ever since starting physical therapy, and he’s come to the conclusion that it is _far preferable_.

Poe, Jessika, and Temmin help out a lot, and that part is enjoyable. He likes cracking jokes with Jessika, listening to Temmin tell stories of the Resistance (some embarrassing, some not) and stories of the original Rebel Alliance that he hadn’t been permitted to know, BB-8’s occasional company rolling alongside him to offer him thumbs-ups.

(He also likes Poe’s grin at every exasperated noise that comes out of him, warm hands clutching his arms as they gently and slowly walk together)

(He likes it more than he’d care to admit)

But the pain is intense and awful, and every day his bones ache, and he wonders if it wouldn’t be easier to just lie on the floor. He mentions this to Poe at one point, who looks at him thoughtfully.

“Move slowly with me, come on,” he says finally and slowly they move to the ground.

“What are we doing?”

“You want to lie on the floor. We’re lying.”

Finn obliges gratefully. His back has reached the stage where it hurts to move, but not to lie down. Poe lies next to him, one arm thrown over his head and the other on his chest. Finn’s hands rest comfortably on his stomach. They are shoulder to shoulder, and Finn pretends that the arm pressed close to his isn’t the best part of his week.

“Are you handling this okay?” Poe asks.

“It’s all right.”

“That’s not what I asked.” 

Finn sighs. “I’m not used to this level of pain,” he admits. “And the physical therapy is just. It’s awful.”

“I gotta say, I’m surprised. I thought they’d have pushed you pretty hard in the First Order.”

“They did.”

“So you didn’t get majorly hurt?”

Finn hesitates. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Poe look at him.

“Finn?”

“You did,” he answers slowly. “But you pretended not to, if you were smart and you could.”

“Why?”

Finn pauses again. He’s not sure he wants to tell Poe this, hear the sympathy in his voice. But he’s not sure he can get away with lying at this point.

“Finn, why?”

Finn gives up. “It was cheaper and easier just to weed out the severely injured ones than rehabilitate them.”

There’s silence. Finn closes his eyes and waits for something pitying.

“I will burn the whole system down.”

Finn opens his eyes and turns his head to see Poe gazing at him with such intensity like Finn’s never seen any one being carry. It’s horror and anger and something stronger, something more fierce. 

“What?” Finn finds himself whispering in awe of the wildfire on Poe’s face, and Poe lowers his voice to a whisper in response.

“I’ll burn them all down for doing that to you.”

Finn stares at Poe.

“Thank you,” he distantly hears himself say softly.

“There’s nothing to thank,” Poe says just as quietly. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I wasn’t there when you woke up. I was there so often, and I thought it would be okay if I went out for the supply run, and-“

“You were there.”

“What?”

“I, uh. I woke up for a little bit. Before I was properly awake. And you were there. You’d, uh, fallen asleep. You were holding the jacket.” _The jacket_ is all he can ever call it, because it’s not his and it’s not Poe’s, it’s _theirs_. But that would give too much away, he thinks, to say it out loud, to show how deeply important it is to him that they share something. “You were the first thing I saw.”

“I was?” Poe’s voice has dropped back down to a whisper.

“You were.”

Poe grins at him, wide and delighted, just like when they were reunited, when he’d looked like he’d been lit up from the inside.

They lie there for a while, Finn’s arm having edged a little more into Poe’s, backs straight against the floor.

 

“So who’s your type?” Temmin asks Finn, arms folded as he leans against the wall. He’s healed physically but now he’s trying to get back into physical shape, sparring with Poe with two long wooden sticks. Finn maintains he’s best with a blaster, but he might as well learn, just in case. 

“ _Snap_ ,” Poe growls irritably as he comes at Finn with the stick, Finn presumes so annoyed because Temmin’s distracting him.

“I just want to know what kind of person he’s into, Poe,” Temmin replies in an oddly innocent voice. “You don’t want him to be lonely forever, do you?” 

Poe grunts.

“So, Finn.” Jessika’s swinging her legs over from the table she’s sitting on. “Come on. What do you like?”

“We didn’t really have time to consider it very much in the First Order.” Finn dodges Poe’s swing. “It was more kill and less love.”

“So you’ve never kissed anybody?”

“I didn’t say _that._ ”

Poe makes another irritable grunting noise. Temmin snorts. Jessika grins and leans forwards.

“Do tell, Finnwell.”

“Finnwell?”

“It’s a full name and it rhymes.”

“Finn’s _got_ a full name,” Poe snaps, jumping to avoid Finn’s stick. “It’s Finn.”

“I like my name.” Finn blocks Poe so their faces are close enough that Finn can smell the sweat on Poe’s face. “Poe gave it to me.”

Finn can feel Poe’s stick loosen slightly in his hand and presses his advantage. Poe's knocked off balance and clatters to the ground. Finn grins and holds out his hand. “One out of one.”

Poe takes it and Finn pulls him up. “Not for long, Mr. Big Deal.”

Finn groans. “How did that get back to you? I really would have liked that not to have gotten back to you.”

“Too late.”

Finn can’t help but grin at the elatedly smug look on Poe’s face. They stand there just grinning at each other for a moment before Temmin clears his throat loudly. Finn quickly looks away, picking up his stick.

BB-8 says something. Jessika tosses her head back and laughs. Temmin does too, a rarity for him. Mostly he lets out little snorts or chuckles. BB-8’s comment causes him to let out a full laugh.

“What did he say?” Finn asks. Poe points at BB-8, tips of his ears red.

“I will have you turned into a decorative kriffing garden ornament.”

“Was it something about amazing my skills are?” Finn grins. “It totally was, wasn’t it?” Poe just keeps glaring at BB-8 so Finn’s gonna guess that he’s right. “That’s my droid!” Finn holds out his fist. BB-8 sticks out an extension of his body from his chest area and bumps it. He turns to Poe, who looks exasperated and maybe a little fond. “See if you can beat me this time?”

“Best two out of three, buddy.”

They start fighting once more. Poe’s white-knuckling his lightsaber stand-in. Finn’s pleased. Clearly he’s intimidated.

“So, Finn, come on,” Jessika says. “What was the mysterious smoochee like? Or was it a smoocher?”

“Smoochee.”

“Initiative! I bet there’s a lot of people in the Resistance who prize initiative and doing among certain-“

“ _Jessika._ ” Poe sounds slightly strangled as he almost dances away from Finn’s stick. Good. Fear his wooden stick powers. 

“Anyway. What was the person like? Boy or girl?”

“Boy.”

“Hmm.”

“I don’t know. Darkish hair, about my height-“ Poe swipes unexpectedly hard and Finn stumbles back, landing on the floor with a _whomp._ He stares up at the sky that is suddenly obscured by Poe grinning down at him, face suddenly bright and amused. “Blue eyes,” he mumbles, seconds before he remembers that the stormtrooper’s eyes (name suddenly forgotten) were brown. 

“One-one, my friend,” Poe says, helping Finn to his feet. 

“Hang on.” Finn tugs off his shirt real quick to save it from any more sweat.

Poe somehow manages to trip over his stick.

Jessika groans. “You two are _exhausting_.”

 

“Do you think Jessika and Temmin might know about how I feel about Poe?” Finn asks Rey anxiously over the holoprojector, before his first mission out since the Starkiller base. “They seem really nice, but do you think they’re teasing me about it when they talk about that stuff?”

Rey stares at him.

“Go help save the galaxy, you idiot,” she finally tells him, which feels kind of unwarranted.

 

Of course, since it’s his first mission out, it goes horribly wrong.

Finn gets pursued by First Order craft, which he shoots down, but his fighter gets clipped in the process, causing him to crash on some backwater planet not unlike Jakku except _more giant bugs that want to eat him_ without any communications array or holoprojector. And even five days later, when he manages to get a craft, he can’t call them on an unprotected frequency in case the Order can track it. 

At least he has the memory stick safely instead the jacket. Hopefully the intelligence he collected will be enough to make up for the fact that when he arrives at Resistance airspace he’s seven days gone and probably presumed dead. 

When he arrives at the base, his radio suddenly crackles to life.

“State your name and intention,” a voice immediately demands. Finn opens his mouth to assert that no, he’s not First Order and going to kill them all, when he hears a slight tussle at the other end.

“Finn!” Rey says, sounding slightly breathless.

“Rey!” He grins wide. “You’re back!”

“You’re not dead! I knew it, I _told_ them I’d have felt it!”

Finn lands the craft and the second he jumps out Rey runs up to him and leaps into his arms. He laughs to match her delighted giggles and swings her around. When he puts her down, he immediately notices her clothes are nicer than the last ones he saw her wearing, her hair pulled back a little neater. 

“I knew it.” She’s beaming. “I knew it, I _told_ the General and Luke.”

“You brought him back?” Finn looks over Finn’s shoulder to see a man with wavy, graying hair and a beard approaching him next to the General, who looks like she’s trying to be commanding but is pleased at the same time.

“You must be Finn.” He shakes Finn’s hand. “My name is Luke Skywalker. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from Rey.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”

“Don’t give him anything else to go to his head,” the General instructs. Skywalker’s lips twitch from the polite smile to something a little more fond and familial when he glances at her. “He’s got enough people bowing down to him here as it is.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Finn rifles through the jacket and presents her with the memory stick. The General’s eyes widen. “I got shot down. Communications were knocked out. But I kept it.”

She smiles at him. “You did a good job, Finn. I thought we’d lost this when we thought you’d died.”

_They all thought he was dead._

“Where’s Poe?”

She takes the stick from him. “Dameron’s on a mission with Pava and Wexley. They’ll be back in roughly the next two days. Top secret, complete communications blackout.” Her face is sympathetic and he has to wonder, does _everyone_ know? “I’m sorry, Finn.”

 

Finn spends the next two days hanging out with Rey and waiting for Poe to come back.

“You gonna tell him?” Rey asks when she bites into her lunch.

“Hell, I don’t know. That might be a little much. _Surprise, I’m not dead, also I’m in love with you._ ”

Rey grins. “In love, huh?”

“Shut up, Rey.”

 

Finn’s hanging a tapestry style blanket given to him at the planet where he’d been stranded on his wall to try and make the place a little more homey when the door bangs open. Finn turns around to see Poe standing there, disheveled and still in his flight suit, staring open mouthed in the doorway.

“Poe, I-“

Poe strides forwards, slams Finn’s back up against the tapestry, and almost aggressively kisses him. Finn doesn’t think, tangling one hand in Poe’s hair and pulling him closer with the other.

When they break apart, Poe is staring at him with the same awed expression Finn saw when they were reunited for the first time, when Poe had found out that Finn had completed his mission and was wearing their jacket. He puts a hand on Finn’s cheek and moves his head slightly, like he’s checking to make sure he’s undamaged.

“I’m fine,” Finn asserts, clearing his throat slightly when his voice cracks. “I got shot down, but I made it out.”

“I wanted to search the whole planet,” Poe murmurs. “I wanted to scour the whole world. But I saw the ship explode.”

“I jettisoned. I’m okay, I promise.”

“Did you kiss me back?”

Finn shuffles a little self-consciously, which is faintly ridiculous considering that Poe’s hair is still vaguely mussed from where his hand was just in it. “Maybe a little.”

Poe’s awed expression combines with a joyful grin. “I didn’t think you felt…” he trailed off and suddenly is the one to look self-conscious. Finn beams, delight blossoming in his chest like a flame.

“Maybe a little.”

Poe laughs and Finn can feel it vibrate him, and it’s the most beautiful sensation in the world. “I thought Jess and Snap were teasing me because they were being pieces of Toydarian crap.”

“I thought they were teasing _me_ about everything being unrequited.”

“Nope.” Finn looks over Poe’s shoulder and Poe cranes his neck to see Jessika and Temmin standing in the doorway, both also still in flight suits and grinning. 

“You two are both just idiots,” Jessika continues. “How much more obvious could we get? We were _trying_ to make a point to Poe and somehow you were both just made stupider by it.”

“You _were_ both pretty damn dumb,” Temmin agrees.

“We don’t have to take this crap from you,” Poe says, still grinning.

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. “They’re being very rude.”

“Let’s make out violently against the wall until they go away.”

“ _GROSS_ ,” Jessika yells loudly, slamming the door as Temmin laughs. Finn laughs, too, shaking his head until Poe, still grinning, still looking as light as Finn feels, pulls him in for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> First Star Wars fic! Woot woot!
> 
> I was watching TFA in the theaters and I saw these two and went "oh NO they are going to cause me trouble". And I was right. They're causing me so much trouble. So many feelings.
> 
> (I figure what BB-8 is saying is something along the lines of how it's pretty damn clear what Poe's type is)
> 
> (BB-8 is not as sweet as he looks)


End file.
